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how many WS did Bob and his teammates really lose vs. Gehrig and DiMaggio because they faced the Yankees? I understand lots of folks don't care about WS anyway, but if you're looking at them at all, well, how many, really?

I think the correction for this in the 154 G era is to adjust the WPct by adding 11 W and 11 L (make the team play itself) and then back-calculate the adjusted Wins from there.

I will point out that an "If Brooks Robinson, then Graig Nettles" argument seemed to be fairly effective a couple of years ago. Despite Nettles playing at the same time as Mike Schmidt, George Brett and Darrell Evans, plus some overlap with Brooks Robinson and Ron Santo at the beginning, and Paul Molitor and Wade Boggs at the end. And then you have Sal Bando, Ron Cey, Buddy Bell and Toby Harrah. At least we've spent years debating Johnson - Nettles slipped in when our back was turned, it seemed to me. (I know that I personally had no idea he was likely to make it that year.)

Well, perhaps the debate hasn't been as vigilante in recent ballots. Gotta finish in the top three, already-inducted players shouldn't be part of the equation. The electorate wasn't *that* high on Brooksie to begin with we all know the bar at 3B rose a bit starting in 1970.

Still, Nettles apparently did well in these advanced metrics of DanR's and what I'm finding is that matching the HOF in size makes for a "bigger hall" than we thought once the HOF's mistakes are replaced with elect-me slots.

Yeah, I almost feel as if we're overrating Raines a bit this week. Part of it is due to the weak backlog competition (where else on this ballot can he go except the top). Part of it is due to the fact that we want to show the BBWAA that he is indeed worthy. Guys get talked up more when minds need to be changed. I mean, if he was like Winfield and he was in already then we could just admit that although he's a shoo-in, he's nowhere near the inner-circle.

Well, he's a lot closer to the inner circle than Winfield! Actually, it would be interesting to see what percentage of the electorate would put Raines in, say, the top 100 and how many would not. Top 100 is where I see him, where Winfield is not quite in the top half of the HoM.

Thought Medwick was a mistake, still not a PHOM.
Liked Nettles, just emphasized defense a little than strict WS analysis after he had been on the ballot as I became more comfortable with DanR's numbers.

If Commissioner Gordon goes in, I hope they bring the red phone under the cake safe.

Walters outside of the war years 150-127, (123 in prime years only) in 2405.1 IP
Newhouser outside of war years 145-115, (129) in 2171.2 IP

Just about the same pitcher

So overall, maybe that's advantage Newhouser. OTOH if you're a peak voter, just imagine if you will voting for Walters w/o war years. I can imagine that. Now, imagine voting for Newhouser w/o the war years. I cannot imagine that.

Walters won 20 games 3 X, led league in IP 3X, CG 3X, ShO 1X, ERA 2X, K 1X--all of those occurrences except one (12 of 13 events) 20 win season outside of the war years
Newhouser won 20 games 4X, led league in IP 1X, CG 2X, ShO 1X, K 2X, ERA 2X--all of those occurrences during the war (9 of 12 events) except 2 20 game win seasons, 1X led league in CG and ERA

Two eerily similar pitchers except that Prince Hal's case rests very largely on what he did during the war. Bucky's doesn't.

I look primarily at WARP when evaluating pitchers. In Bucky Walters' case, he has 1 excellent season (1939: 13.2), 3 very good seasons (1941: 9.3, 1940 8.4, 1944: 8.4), & 2 pretty good years (1936: 7.5, 1942: 6.9). In Hal Newhouser's case, 6 excellent seasons, 1944 - 1949 (14.2, 15.8, 14, 11.4, 12.2, 10.2). I give a 10% discount for performance during WWII to account for weaker competition. After the discount Walters' '44 looks more like '36 than '40, while Newhouser's '43 through '45 merely fall in line with '46 through '49.

How well would they have done during those war years (indicated by *)? We could hazard a guess based on age or outside experience, or by guessing how those who missed time would've performed, but that would just be a guess.

I do not believe in radical discounts or discrediting performance for those years since "a pennant is a pennant" and we do not know to what extent stronger competition would affect their performance. In Walters' case, the WWII issue is a minor one, merely an aside in a ballot comment. The much stronger argument against him is that his best ERA+ years came with one of the greatest defensive teams ever behind him.